IN FOCUS: As Malaysia corruption dragnet widens, PM Anwar's 'political payback' threatens to hurt business sentiment

KUALA LUMPUR: Amid Malaysia’s high-profile raids in recent months by its anti-graft busters as part of the country’s most extensive crackdown on corporate corruption, one has flown under the radar but stirred disquiet within the country’s clubby corporate and banking circles.

In late March, Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) investigators made surprising simultaneous swoops on the offices of former finance minister Daim Zainuddin at the prestigious 60-storey Menara Ilham and the publicly listed Protasco Bhd, an investment holding company with extensive interests in road maintenance operations throughout the country.

News of the raid on Protasco, which has not surfaced in public until now, quietly spread like wildfire in the corporate and banking sector as it marked the first time a listed entity had been caught in the crosshairs of the probe against Daim and his previous political boss, former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

In a country where business and politics have long been intertwined and where many tycoons from companies listed on the Malaysian stock exchange have relied on the ruling elite for public projects and other government largesse, the widening crackdown is stirring unease because of potential pitfalls facing businesses stuck on the wrong side of the political divide.

“People are using the word ‘vendetta’ and the pattern emerging is that those close to former senior politicians are becoming targeted by the new government, and it does not matter how far it goes back,” said a chief executive of a state-controlled local commercial bank, who declined to be named. He noted palpable nervousness among many of his corporate clients over the ongoing crackdown.

Dr Mahathir – the 98-year-old two-time former